Captured by Scott Olson of Getty Images, it’s a photo of a devastated dad, comforting his daughter on a set wooden steps surrounded by water. The staircase is all that remains of their 108-year-old family cottage, swept away by Hurricane Irene.

The Stinson family – dad Billy, wife Sandra and daughter Erin – lost the cottage on Albemarle Sound at Nags Head, North Carolina, Sunday to the storm.

”We pretended, just for a moment, the cottage was still behind us and we were sitting there watching the sunset,” Erin Stinson said of the photo.

The cottage found itself in the eye of Hurricane Irene, and the results were devastating. The hurricane first made landfall on North Carolina’s famed Outer Banks, destroying vulnerable beach houses along the shoreline before ripping up the East Coast, causing 40 deaths and still untold amounts damage.

The Stinsons, the home’s owners since 1963, say their neighbors and the community are helping them get through this tough time.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Miami Herald has narrowed its search for a new home to roughly a handful of locations that include the former Florida Power and Light headquarters [at 9250 W. Flagler St.] in west Miami-Dade and the Bertram Yacht yard on the Miami River, according to sources.

Former FPL headquarters, 9250 W. Flagler St., Miami.

In a story posted on the Journal's website last Friday, Musibay adds,

The Herald has been seeking between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet of office space for its administrative, editorial and other newspaper-related staff.

The scenarios publisher David Landsberg and the business staff at the newspaper are considering include relocating the administrative, editorial and other newspaper-related staff to be separate from the printing operation.

The company is also considering a joint printing operation in Miami-Dade with the Sun-Sentinel, according to sources.

One of the sites the Herald is supposedly considering is property where the Bertram yacht company is located. The Bertram site, at 3663 NW 21st St., is more than 15 acres. It would involve a build-to-suit that may not include the printing operation. One source said Bertram currently has signs on the site on the factory side that states there is “space available”. It’s unclear how the Herald’s possible move there might impact the Bertram boat manufacturing operation.

In an email Monday, Herald Publisher David Landsberg told staff that the company’s efforts to develop new revenue streams aren’t enough to offset prolonged revenue declines.

Landsberg said 13 jobs companywide will be eliminated and about 20 other vacant positions won’t be filled. It wasn’t clear how many of those jobs were in the newsrooms of the Herald and the Spanish-language El Nuevo Herald.

Also, all remaining full-time employees will be required to take a weeklong furlough without pay between September and the end of the year.

The company has already laid off more than 200 employees since 2009. It has also made significant cuts to save money, instituted news-sharing with other South Florida newspapers, reduced the physical size of its newspapers, consolidated sections, and raised prices for subscribers and newsstand buyers in an effort to find an economic balance. Remaining staff have endured pay cuts and furloughs.

In an email to staffers, executive editor Mindy Marques said the newsroom would suffer a "loss of 4.5 existing vacancies, three full-time positions, one part-time position and a reduction in hours for two positions."

Recent voluntary departures from the paper include tech writer Bridget Carey and staff writers Rob Barry, Robert Samuels, Jaweed Kaleem and James Burnett.

Every time a natural disaster strikes, televangelist clown Pat Robertson is there to remind us that God is angry and the End Times are nigh. The recent earthquake and hurricane were no exception:

“It seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power. It has been the symbol of our great nation. We look at the symbol and we say ‘this is one nation under God.’ Now there’s a crack in it … Is that a sign from the Lord? … You judge. It seems to me symbolic.”

[...]

Of course, most people don't take Robertson seriously. Hurricanes and earthquakes have occurred regularly all over the world since before humankind existed. There was a time when they seemed to be the product of God's wrath, but geology and meteorology long ago provided much more plausible explanations. Nevertheless, there are still a few wacky cranks like Robertson to say things like this:

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

Whoops! That wasn't Pat Robertson ridiculously claiming that God created a (very minor) earthquake and a (relatively unexceptional) hurricane because he was upset about the government's finances. It was Michele Bachmann. She's running for president.

noun
1. a violent, tropical, cyclonic storm of the western North Atlantic, having wind speeds of or in excess of 72 miles per hour (32 m/sec). Compare tropical cyclone, typhoon.

2. a weather phenomenon that causes normally rational television reporters to do really stupid things in order to report something their viewers can pretty much figure out on their own: hurricanes cause a lot of wind and rain.

Below is a video of WTTG's Tucker Barnes casually giving a live report on Hurricane Irene today from Ocean City, Maryland while drenched in what he described as "organic matter" that "doesn't taste great."

“Chief De Lucca was selected for his 26 years of experience as a police officer and for having led the city of Miami Beach police department,” said Town Manager Alexander Diaz. “He has strong credentials that he brings to the town.”

De Lucca will earn an annual salary of $100,000 and assume his role as chief around mid-September, Diaz said.

"The Chief's good friend Nevin Shapiro needs two rooms for tonight (8/15/06) at the Ritz-Carlton. Would you be able to help him with that? Thanks for your help!"

So reads an email sent five years ago from then-Miami Beach Police chief Don De Lucca's assistant to a manager at the posh South Beach hotel. It's one of several instances in which Delucca arranged hotel reservations for the Ponzi schemer. It's all included in a cache of more that 37 emails between the two pals that Riptide obtained from a public records request.

One of the explosive claims Shapiro recently made to a Yahoo! reporter during prison interviews: He plied University of Miami football players with prostitutes and threw sex parties for the athletes in hotel rooms. The Ritz-Carlton was not named in the story.

[Garcia-Roberts] contacted Golden Beach mayor Glenn Singer this morning, before the hiring was announced, and asked whether De Lucca's queasy relationship with Shapiro would make him rethink the former chief's job candidacy.

"No," Singer told us. "First off, I haven't seen the emails. Secondly, this guy Shapiro duped the entire University of Miami faculty."

For DeLucca's sake I hope he's a tad more discreet in Golden Beach than he was when he was Miami Beach's chief. From Garcia-Roberts' story:

It was no secret in the police department that Delucca and Shapiro were close. "Nevin would be in and out of the chief's office so much that you'd think he was assistant chief," says Gustavo Sanchez, vice president of the Miami Beach Police union, adding that they would often hold court together at South Beach's Smith & Wollensky steak house. Sanchez claims officers openly expressed skepticism about the chief's association with a man of dubious wealth who often paraded around the police station with "women that were obviously hookers."

One day in 1964, WYVJ sent a reporter and a cameraman out to Hialeah to investigate the the phenomenon of a TV set that changed channels when a dog chain was rattled. This was a follow up to a story a few months earlier about a woman whose TV set changed channels when she smacked her lips.

UPDATED: The bright spot in all of this for city of Miami taxpayers? Tim Elfrink of New Timeswrites: "Worth noting for those who think the city hasn't made any efforts to trim salaries amidst the looming double dip recession: In 2008, the Biscayne Timesfound that 97 city employees, mostly from the Fire Department, had topped $200K."

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Labrador retriever Hawkeye lies down with a sigh at funeral of his owner

Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson lay in a coffin, draped in an American flag, in front of a tearful audience mourning his death in Afghanistan. Soon an old friend appeared, and like a fellow soldier on a battlefield, his loyal dog refused to leave him behind.

Tumilson’s Labrador retriever, Hawkeye, was photographed lying by Tumilson’s casket in a heart-wrenching image taken at the funeral service in Tumilson’s hometown of Rockford, Iowa, earlier this week. Hawkeye walked up to the casket at the beginning of the service and then dropped down with a heaving sigh as about 1,500 mourners witnessed a dog accompanying his master until the end, reported CBS..

The photo was snapped by Tumilson’s cousin, Lisa Pembleton, and posted on her Facebook page in memory of the San Diego resident. Tumilson, 35, was one of 30 American troops, including 22 Navy SEALs, who were killed when a Taliban insurgent shot down a Chinook helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade on Aug. 6.

“I felt compelled to take one photo to share with family members that couldn't make it or couldn't see what I could from the aisle,” Pembleton wrote on her Facebook page. “To say that he was an amazing man doesn't do him justice. The loss of Jon to his family, military family and friends is immeasurable.’’

Here's a short video of Hawkeye lying next to the casket that has been "looped for emphasis."

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Daniel Cárdenas Sr. kisses the casket of his son Daniel, at the boy's funeral Tuesday. photo by Pedro Portal, El Nuevo Herald.

"News is the deviation from the normal."-Miami Herald executive editor Janet Chusmir, quoted in the Herald, Feb. 2, 1988

_______________________________

What Chusmir was talking about when she made that statement - almost 3 years before her death in December 1990 - is journalism's "man bites dog" rule. A rule that says, "an unusual, infrequent event is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday occurrence."

But if you looked at a copy of Tuesday's Herald you might have noticed at least two stories on page 1 that run counter to the "man bites dog" rule.

A story about kids going back to school at the end of summer. To most of us, that's an ordinary occurrence. Happens every year around this time. Yawn!

Another story gracing the Herald's front page Tuesday was about Haitian president Michel Martelly "having a hard time meeting expectations in his first months in office."

Stop the presses! Things are not getting done in Haiti!! As sad as that is, many would consider that another "ordinary, everyday occurrence." OK, so it's news. But page one news? I think not.

What isn't an ordinary occurrence is three teenagers - their lives full of promise - having those lives snuffed out in a violent, horrific and senseless car crash.

That's what happened Saturday night in Doral

A car driven by a 19 year old kid with an abysmal driving record, crashed into a light pole killing his three teenage passengers. The driver, Alberto de Jesús Coterón Oliva, survived and fled the scene of the crash. He later surrendered to police.

The Herald tried its best not to run the story. But the story - written by two El Nuevo Herald reporters - ran anyway, on page 4B....far from the prying eyes of casual readers of the paper.

To their credit, editors at El Nuevo recognized this story as an important one and it ran on the paper's front page. They followed up today with another page 1 story and photograph of the funeral of one of the victims. (See photo above.)

This is not the first time the Herald has attempted to protect its readers from the unpleasantness of death.

Last November, 20 year-old Michael Beatty was chased down a Liberty City street in broad daylight and gunned down by a thug with a Mac-10. The crime was caught on tape. But Herald editors thought this was more violence than their squeamish readers could handle and the paper never printed a word about it.

But Herald editors also shy away from other newsworthy stories.

A couple of weeks ago, an alert Miami police officer arrested two Miami men who were driving around Miami in a 2002 Pontiac Bonneville that was a rolling arsenal. Inside the car the officer discovered a loaded 45 caliber Glock handgun with an extended magazine, a loaded AK-47 assault rifle and a 45 caliber Ruger handgun.

Herald editors apparently decided that a story of two potentially violent felons being removed from the streets wasn't newsworthy enough. Nothing appeared in the paper.

Perhaps one of these days the Herald will return to its original mission as outlined by Janet Chusmir in 1988: printing stories of "unusual, infrequent events," which at most other newspapers is still known as "news."

A Miami tragedy...three young lives full of promise, gone in a flash. Enrique Flor and Melissa Sanchez of El Nuevo Herald reported the story for Tuesday's paper which was picked up by the Miami Herald.

Three teens die in apparent drag-racing crash

It was going to be a night of celebration before the first day of school on Monday.

The teens arrived at the Dolphin Mall Saturday afternoon. Friends gave Verónica Santiago, 17, and Isis Maciel Jiménez, 15, a ride there. The father of Daniel Cárdenas, 17, took him there thinking that the boy deserved a fun night. Alberto de Jesús Coterón Oliva, 19, arrived in his 1994 Honda Civic.

The four teenagers knew each other through friends, Facebook and frequent Friday-night outings to a skating rink in Kendall and dancing at the Dolphin Mall. Santiago and Cárdenas were sweethearts, as were Jiménez and Coterón.

That night, while their parents waited for them at home, the teens decided to leave the mall and go for a ride in Coterón’s Civic. Jiménez was riding on the passenger side. Santiago and Cárdenas were in the back seat.

Before 11 p.m., Coterón began racing against a black Infiniti near Northwest 12th Street and 99th Avenue. Witnesses told Miami-Dade County police that the cars were going at a high speed. At a curve, Coterón lost control. The Civic bumped over the curb and crashed into a light post, breaking in two, according to the police report. Three passengers died instantly. Coterón, who suffered cuts and bruises, ran away, police said.

It took hours for their families to learn of the accident.

Why was Coterón on the road? Was he, once again, driving with a suspended license?

Of Coterón's driving record, the Herald story says, "he has been fined 16 times for traffic violations, including driving without a license, driving with a suspended license and driving a noisy exhaust pipe."

But a closer inspection of his record shows that since 2007 he's been cited 7 times for having no drivers license or knowingly driving while his license was suspended. (see charts below.)

Perhaps, in time, we'll get some clear answers as to why he was allowed to continue to drive.

But, for three families and hundreds of friends and classmates, those answers will be too little, too late.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Cleveland rapper and P. Diddy’s newest signee Machine Gun Kelly was cited with disorderly conduct after he reportedly refused to get down from a food court table during a flash mob he organized at a suburban mall, police said Sunday.

MTV reports that MGK had told his more than 70,000 fans on Twitter to flash mob Cleveland’s South Park Mall on Saturday, and hundreds of them did — many of them running through the mall screaming as MGK spoke through a speakerphone and encouraged them to climb on mall tables.

William Talbert, President of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. (Official GMCVB photo)

In 1999 when Bill Talbert was appointed president of the the quasi-private, publicly-funded Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, (GMCVB) he told the Miami Herald, "I'm honored, and I want to take us on to the next level."

On its website the GMCVB says its mission is to "attract and encourage individuals and organizations to visit Greater Miami and the Beaches."

And how does the GMCVB attract and encourage tourists and groups to visit Miami?

Talbert and his staff oversee the production of print ads, posters, brochures and videos that show Miami at its best.

YouTube? Surely the GMCVB, with its $24 million annual budget hires dozens of talented videographers to shoot slick, picturesque videos which are then posted on the GMCVB's YouTube page. Right?

Yes, the GMCVB does have a YouTube page. Let's look at one of their videos.

Is that it Bill? That's what $24 million buys? One embarrassingly bad video? There are kids in junior high school that shoot better videos that that piece of crap.

Question: How hard is it to find someone to shoot a professional-looking video that shows off Miami?

Answer: Not that hard.

Here's a video shot by a couple of videographers in their spare time while they were in Miami covering the 2010 Super Bowl for ESPN. One of the filmmakers, Joel Edwards writes: "So we're in Miami this year shooting for ESPN SuperBowl coverage.. and I'm blown away by so many different colors we're capturing... and then... Roache and I get on a couple of boats for water views... long story short.. we had so much extra footage... great footage... I figured I might as well put together a scenic mix with some crazy color correction and trance music."

Now here' a question for Bill Talbert: How many young creatives do you have on your bloated, overpaid staff? People who can produce videos like that because it's second nature for them? Perhaps the reason you don't have any talented and creative people on your staff is because it would serve to highlight your own incompetence.

By the way, here's a video shot in Miami Beach a few months ago that's getting a lot of views. It's not quite as slick or professional as Joel's video, but it's definitely generating a lot of talk about "Greater Miami and the Beaches."

Friday, August 19, 2011

The Miami Herald's David Smiley is reporting that disgraced former Miami Beach cop ...

...Derick Kuilan, who faces two felony counts of reckless driving with serious bodily injury and two of DUI with serious bodily injury, wrote in a grievance filed with the city of Miami Beach that investigators wrongly took his blood after the July 3 crash.
[...]
Kuilan, 30, is demanding that he be reinstated with back pay and benefits.

Kuilan and his attorney attorney Evan Hoffman, are apparently hoping that everyone has forgotten that Kuilan, in addition to being drunk on July 3, was also reckessly tearing around a darkened beach on a police department ATV before crashing into "Luis Almonte and Kitzie Nicanor near Fourth Street." Nicanor underwent multiple surgeries.

Hoffman tells the Herald the case has "been sensationalized. People are assuming that’s what’s already been put out there is true, and I wouldn’t assume that.”

So, congratulations Evan Hoffman!

For that asinine statement and your defense of the indefensible, you are the Random Pixels Asshole of the Week.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

C'mon Gabriel. Robbing a guy in a wheelchair? Didn't your mama learn you no manners??

WHEELCHAIR- BOUND MAN BEFRIENDED BY ROBBER

~ UPDATE ~

Today, detectives have arrested Gabriel Soto, D.O.B. 9/8/94 and charged him with one count of strong arm robbery and one count of grand theft.

See attached arrest affidavit. Officer Kenia Reyes

4/18/11

_________________________________________

On Friday, July 22nd, at approximately 11:35 AM, a wheelchair-bound man was aboard a Miami-Dade Transit bus, when he was befriended by a white Hispanic man riding the same bus. Minutes later, they both stopped at the Northwest 22nd Avenue and West Flagler Street bus stop and exited the bus. Once outside, the suspect asked the victim for a cigarette and as the victim pulled out his pack of cigarettes, his money also fell out. The suspect sought the opportunity and snatched the cigarettes, money and cellular phone, then ran westbound on West Flagler Street.

Fortunately, the victim was unharmed, but the cameras aboard the Miami-Dade Transit bus caught the suspects face, gestures, actions, and intentions.

The suspect is described as a white Hispanic man, clean shaven, approximately 20 years old, 5’7” tall, and weighs approximately 145 lbs. He was last seen wearing a black shirt, olive green shorts and white sneakers.

Detectives need assistance in trying to identify the subject.

Surveillance video is available at the Public Information Office today, from 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM and can only be filmed from the computer monitor.

While he doesn't say it in this interview with ESPN's Jim Rome, I did hear Billy on more than one occasion sum up the scandal perfectly with this line: "L.A. is where you go when you want to be somebody. New York is where you go when you are somebody. And Miami is where you go when you want to become someone else."

SAN DIEGO — A surveillance video at a City Heights McDonald’s shows the poignant encounter between a San Diego police officer and local boy minutes before the officer was shot and killed by a suicidal gunman.

The Aug. 6 tape, which police released Tuesday, shows Officer Jeremy Henwood walking up to the counter at 5:24 p.m. He appears to take awhile deciding what to order. Moments later, a boy sidles up to the counter beside him and appears to look at his police belt full of equipment. The boy smiles as he and the officer exchange words.

Henwood buys the boy cookies along with a meal for himself, all the while talking to the boy.

After getting a soda at the fountain, Henwood walks out of the frame at 5:28 p.m.

Four minutes later, the officer was shot while driving east on University Avenue near 45th Street. Police found the McDonald’s bag in his patrol car, the food inside still warm.

Something happened yesterday that, once again, calls into question the competence of people Gov. Rick Scott has surrounded himself with.

Scott and his handlers have apparently decided that they are tired of seeing photos like this, (left), in newspapers and on websites. (That photo was shot by a wire service photographer last year on election night.)

So, Scott's office, as a part of the obvious ongoing campaign to soften the governor's image, released a new official portrait.

Those experienced in dealing with the cranky, suspicious class known as hardcore news reporters know the best way to get journalists to do something, is to tell them they can't -- and vice versa.

So it's hard to understand why anybody in Gov. Rick Scott's office thought journalists would actually accede to their request that all photos of the new governor be supplanted by an official photo they distributed Monday (shown below, left).

It's as if they wanted to make sure we never used that photo ever -- except to make fun of it.

The email sent to news outlets said: "Please forward the attached photo of Governor Rick Scott to the appropriate people in your organization who handle graphics, layout and design.

Please use this photo of Governor Scott, rather than any others you may have on file."

Beyond the odd, controlling nature of the request, it's not even a photo of the governor in a suit and tie, which makes using the image for more official stories a tough sell.

Out of focus pics are OK I guess if all you're going to do is post them on Facebook. But if you're CEO of the 4th largest state in the country, is it too much to ask to send out a portrait that looks half-way professional?

Especially if you're sending it to professionals "who handle graphics, layout and design."

Note to Gov. Scott. If you're having trouble finding someone in Tallahassee who knows how to focus a camera, feel free to give me a shout next time you're in Miami and I'll hook you up wiith a professional, in-focus photo. It's the least I can do.

But if you are Tillman, the world’s fastest skateboarding dog — you can look it up in the Guinness Book of World Records — you have people.

You have an agent, a personal assistant, a driver, a pedicurist, publicists, and a guy named Ron Davis, who picked you out of a litter of six English bulldog puppies and made you an Internet star — which was the last thing that the former construction project manager had in mind.
[...]
Although he wasn’t breaking any records on Friday at the Westwind Lakes Skate Park in Kendall, Tillman still drew an excited crowd of mostly elementary and middle-school kids who had spotted his roadies’ bus, emblazoned with Tillman pictures.

Davis and Tillman arrived in a rented minivan with Tillman’s “posse’’: bulldogs Rose, Lyle and Sully. In various combinations of fawn and white, the duffle bag-shaped dogs spilled out of the van onto the lawn, where they did what a dog will do after a long car ride. Snuffling in the grass like truffle-seeking swine, they snorted and slobbered and took evasive measures, as kids tried to grab them.

They’ve all been neutered.

“Some of the best dogs I’ve had in my life were from shelters and rescues,’’ said Davis. “We didn’t want Tillman adding to the [pet overpopulation] problem.’’

Sunday, August 14, 2011

This just in to the CNN Newsroom! CNN's Don Lemon got roughed up by a couple of blonde Tea Party bimbos in Iowa yesterday while he was trying to ask Rep. Michele Bachmann some questions. And then someone pushed him into a golf cart and people started spilling stuff. Oh, the humanity!

If this is the worst thing that ever happens to him in his career, then he'll be just fine.

But, it also appears that Lemon has never been in the middle of a full-fledged, balls-to-the-wall media cluster-fuck.

Note to Don Lemon: Reporters and photographers have been dealing this for eons.

Stop whining. And next time you find yourself in the middle of one of these situations, don't chastise people for "being rude" and complain about "spilling stuff." Unless, of course, you want to come off sounding like a candy ass.

And Don; in case you're wondering what it's really like to get roughed up, here's the classic clip of Dan Rather at the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

The only thing I like better than a story of a criminal being taken off the streets is a story of a really stupid criminal being taken off the streets.

The Miami Police Department satisfied that need late this afternoon when it sent out a press release that tells the story of not one, but two really stupid criminals being removed from our streets. Enjoy!

OFFICERS ON HIGH ALERT DETECT ARMED MEN

Today, at approximately 7:30 AM, a Miami Police officer was working a car fire at NW 3rd Avenue and 11 Street, when he witnessed a vehicle go the wrong way on Northwest 11 Street. The driver and passenger exited the vehicle and walked towards the officers. The officer asked the driver for his license.

Shortly after, the driver, Jovens Esperance, D.O.B. 3/4/92, was placed under arrest and charged with one count of no valid driver license. The passenger remained on the scene.

Once Esperance was arrested for the traffic violation, the officer began to search the silver 2002 Pontiac Bonneville and found a loaded 45 caliber Glock handgun with an extended magazine, a loaded AK-47 assault rifle on the rear passenger seat and a 45 caliber Ruger handgun on the front passenger floorboard of the car. Immediately, officers placed Christopher Jaime Sealy, D.O.B. 10/24/92, under arrest.

All three loaded firearms were confiscated. Detectives arrived on the scene and both Esperance and Sealy were taken to headquarters for questioning.

After detectives questioned both men and checked the serial numbers of the weapons, Jovens Esperance, D.O.B. 3/4/92, was charged with three counts of carrying a concealed firearm, two counts of grand theft and one count of possession of cocaine.

Christopher Jaime Sealy, D.O.B. 10/24/92 was arrested and charged with three counts of carrying a concealed firearm and two counts of grand theft. Two of the three firearms confiscated were reported stolen, one out of Miami-Dade County Police Department and another by Hollywood Police Department. Detectives are still waiting on a response on the AK-47.

Two burly Collier County sheriff’s deputies and a homeowner’s attorney strode into the Bank of America branch on Davis Boulevard in Naples with a court order and an ultimatum for Manager Erich Fahrner.

Fahrner’s choice: Write out a check for $2,534 in attorney’s fees for the couple wrongfully slapped with a foreclosure lawsuit by the bank, or a William C. Hoff Storage moving crew waiting outside would start hauling out furniture to be sold at public auction.

“I’m leaving the building with either cash, a check or a whole lot of furniture,” attorney Todd Allen said just before walking in.

Saturday, August 06, 2011

‎Bill are you gonna do a Ted Bundy trial post? We were just talking in the rakontur office today about how crazy the spring of 1979 was. The turnpike shootout in April, the Ted Bundy trial in June and then the Dadeland shooting in July.

Consider it done, Alfred!

________

"El Loco" and the Florida Turnpike shootout - April, 1979

Colombian hit man Conrado "El Loco" Valencia Zalgado, racing along the turnpike in his Audi in April 1979, opened fire with his MAC-10 on rival drug runners who were trying to evade him in a Pontiac Grand Prix. After the shootout, authorities found a handcuffed corpse in El Loco's abandoned car.

THE LAW CATCHES UP WITH EL LOCO
Miami Herald, Monday, September 13, 1982
by CARL HIAASEN

For the elusive cowboy who calls himself El Loco , the westward trail has ended.

Conrado Valencia Zalgado, a legend in South Florida cocaine corridors, loved his money, loved his women and loved his nickname. He brought all of them to California -- and they did him in.

After three years on the run, "the crazy one" knocked on the door of a girlfriend's apartment 10 days ago and got the barrel of a revolver stuck in his mouth.

Wisely, he chose not to make a fuss.

The gun belonged to a wary Los Angeles County narcotics detective. He knew the reason for Valencia 's notoriety.

It was the summer of 1979 when El Loco allegedly hung from the window of a speeding Audi, firing a .45-caliber submachine gun at another car on Florida's Turnpike extension in South Dade.

His cocaine enemies retaliated. A few weeks later, horrified shoppers at the Dadeland Mall watched as assassins with submachine-guns murdered two of El Loco 's compatriots.

But El Loco already was gone. He had plunked down $105,000 cash, checked out of the Dade County Jail with his St. Lazarus pendant and vanished.

His flight only enhanced his reputation as Dade's original cocaine cowboy. Police knew him as brazen and extravagant, a macho master of deception. Valencia 's shadow was seen from New York to Miami, from California to his native Colombia -- but no one caught up with him.

Last year, for example, a SWAT team and drug agents from three police departments surrounded a house in Southwest Dade during a quince, the traditional 15th birthday party for one of Valencia 's daughters. At midnight -- when all glasses were raised in a toast -- police stormed the house.

El Loco was nowhere to be found.

What finally led to his capture 3,000 miles away was a careless mistake by the woman who loved him, a suspicious spillage of $20 bills, two cops with keen memories -- and Valencia 's own boastfulness.

On the streets of Los Angeles, he called himself the one name that cocaine cohorts everywhere knew: El Loco Martel.

"His nickname. That's what did

him in," said Metro-Dade detective Al Lopez, who has tracked Valencia over the years.

The Los Angeles investigation began last December, when a family of Colombians suddenly abandoned their rented house, leaving all their furniture and $480,000 in cash. Even in Southern California, this is considered strange behavior.

Weeks later, the fretful landlord called police to report that another group of Colombians wanted to rent the same house. They offered $4,500 cash, all in $20 bills.

That sort of transaction would be accepted in Miami as business-as-usual, but not in Los Angeles. Detective Dick Sloan of the Los Angeles County "narco squad" went to work. He discovered that one Colombian woman had begun renting several homes and apartments in the Los Angeles area -- always with cash.

"If they had just used a checkbook like everybody else, this would never have happened," Lopez mused.

The woman's name was Brenda Valencia . It meant nothing to Sloan. He didn't know she was El Loco 's common-law wife.

Years ago, in Miami, El Loco caught Brenda with another man and shot her in the chest with a .357 magnum.

Apparently, all was forgiven.

When the Los Angeles detectives began following Brenda, she led them to a balding, muscular man with a gold St. Lazarus pendant around his neck.

A new life

Conrado Valencia had little trouble making a new life for
himself in California. On Jan. 19, he was issued a drivers license with the name "Salvadore de la Roca." He rented a home near Beverly Hills using the name "Max Valencia ." He got an American Express card and Social Security number 265-67-6912.

When he wasn't zipping down Sunset Strip on his brand-new Honda motorcycle, he was cruising the hills of Topanga Canyon in a red 1948 De Soto convertible. The tag read: "LAXPRES."

"He was acting," Sloan said, "like he was king of the road."

Sloan says surveillance teams witnessed several cocaine deals conducted by Valencia and his associates. A favorite hangout was a Colombian bar in San Pedro called The Fabulous Palace.

When an undercover cop tailed Valencia into the place, he heard the nickname El Loco spoken in tones of reverence. When Valencia left, the cop reported, the doors were locked for 10 minutes so that no one could follow.

But Sloan's men stayed close. What they saw during some of the stakeouts was downright weird.

For instance, on garbage day, the occupants of three different homes rented by Brenda Valencia would haul their trash bags -- not to the street, but to the house where El Loco stayed. After a brief inspection, the contents would be left on the curb.

The cops, of course, promptly swiped the garbage in search of clues. In one heap they found insurance forms from a traffic accident in Miami. In another they found Brenda's $480 telephone bill. Someone had placed long-distance calls to 31 different numbers in Dade County.

Collecting clues

Those weren't the only South Florida connections. Detectives noticed a number of new cars coming and going from El Loco 's houses and apartments. Although the cars had Oregon license plates, a computer printout showed that all had been rented from a National Car agency in Miami, then driven to California.

This supported Sloan's theory that the Colombians were bringing cocaine shipments to Los Angeles from Florida. But he still did not know the real identity, or reputation, of the man with the motorcycle.

On Aug. 11, Sloan decided to call Dade County organized crime detectives with a list of his suspects.

"The only name that rang a bell was Brenda Valencia ," Lopez said. "I told Sloan who she was married to, a crazy bald guy who called himself Loco ."

"That's the guy." Sloan said.

"I couldn't believe Brenda was using her real name," Lopez said. "Wait till Loco finds out that's what did him in."

Lopez told Sloan that Conrado Valencia was wanted for attempted murder and numerous firearm violations in Dade County. He told him about the dead Colombian who was found in the trunk of the Audi after the Turnpike shootout, and about Valencia 's alleged alliance with reputed "Cocaine Queen" Martha Libia Cardona, a federal fugitive.